Felis Silvestris Crochet and Craft Blog

 Hello Blog, It's Been a While I haven't updated this blog for some time, I realise. There's a few reasons for this. Firstly, I spent the latter part of 2023 embroiled in a lot of health problems and dealing with some hardcore chronic illness flare ups. I have quite the list of chronic health conditions now, so it's been quite the adventure trying various different medications and whatnot.  It has meant I've not really been in the crafting space for a while, although I have managed to find my inspiration again and I have been making, which has been nice. I still can't do quite as much as I would like, as my hands do get sore after a while. I've not been in much of a writing space either, but that has also improved recently. So I want to get back to writing on this blog more regularly.  What does that mean? Well, regular posts will be happening and I will hold myself accountable to that. I have decided to keep my tutorials for YouTube, and my free patterns wi...

 New Pattern Coming Soon Bertie the Bunny Pattern will be available soon! It's currently being tested by a handful of lovely crocheters so there will be updates soon when I get feedback and photos from them. So if you want to make this little cutie, watch this space.  This is my second ever plushie pattern, and it took a little bit of experimenting to get it right, but I was able to incorporate some of the feedback and lessons learned from the Barry the Bat pattern and apply it to this one. I've designed it so that the ears can be placed in either upright or lop position and it will still look cute.  I've got a few other ideas in mind I'd like to work on so there will be more patterns coming soon. I'm also planning to write up and share my daffodil pattern fairly soon, this one will be available for free, and will come with lots of photos and video guides. 

Welcome to Part 3 of my Crochet for Beginners Today we're going to cover changing colours in straight crochet and how to follow a basic pattern. For now, we'll stick with text-based patterns as they are the most common ones crocheters use. There are diagram based patterns as well but they are a bit more challenging for beginners to use, so we'll cover them at a later date. Changing Colours Changing colours is quite straightforward when crocheting on a straight line. Once you reach the end of the row before the colour change, before you make the chains to start the next row, cut off the yarn you've been using, leaving around a 10cm (4") tail. Then use the new colour to make your chains to start the next row, again leaving a 10cm tail on the new yarn. I find it helps to hold the two tails while making the chain and first stitches to ensure you don't accidentally unravel your work. Once you've done the first couple of stitches, you should be good to ke...

  Crochet Basics Part 2 Hi, welcome back. This is part 2 of my crochet basics series introducing crochet and teaching you how to get started. In the first part we went over the basics of beginning a piece of crochet, the slipknot, the chain stitch, double crochet (single crochet in the US) and how to fasten off at the end. Today we're going to cover a couple of new stitches you can use for different textures. The half-treble and treble crochet stitches are fairly easy to work. These stitches are taller than the double crochet. You'll see what I mean.  Half-Treble Crochet (htr) Half-treble is between double and treble crochet in height. It is worked very similarly to a double crochet, the difference is you wrap the yarn around your hook before pushing it into the next stitch, then you pull the yarn through, pulling up another loop. This leaves three loops on your hook instead of two. You wrap the yarn around the hook again and pull it through all three loops together. That's...

Crochet Basics Welcome to the first part of my first series of blog posts on the basics of crochet for beginners. I will cover what you need to get started and some tutorials so you can learn the basic stitches and get started on a few easy projects. This is perfect for crochet beginners who want to learn how to crochet and get into this amazing hobby. Word of warning: it is addictive! Once you start and you realise just how flexible crochet is and what you can make, it's going to take over your life. It's not an expensive hobby to start, but it can become so when you see the variety of yarns and projects available to you. So, a little about my background with crochet. It's something my mum does, and has done for years. I have a couple of blankets that she made when I was a baby, and I still have them. I got into crochet by a kind of circuitous route - when I started getting into cosplay I learned how to knit to make legwarmers and began collecting magazines on knitting and...

 Barry the Bat My first crochet pattern that I've prepared for sale, is this adorable little guy here: Cute, isn't he? The name came from one of my lovely colleagues. This was a spur of the moment kind of idea, I wanted to make something but didn't know what to make so I just kind of went with it and ended up making this little dude.  I shared it and got a good response. I loved him. So I made another one from the notes I'd made. After that, I decided the pattern was worth sharing. I typed it up and put out a call for some pattern testers. I got a handful of lovely volunteers and sent the pattern off. I've had some great feedback from testers, which meant I could perfect the pattern, make sure it was easy to follow and the instructions were clear. It's important to make sure that the pattern works for other people too. I kind of know what I did, but I had to make sure other people could follow along.  All the tweaks are done and the pattern is ready to share. It...

 Hello and Welcome! This is a blog to accompany my main website with all my crochet and craft escapades. I hope it'll be interesting for you all to read. So, what can you expect to find on this blog? Crochet tutorials Free Crochet Patterns General updates about new products and upcoming sales Reviews of new products like yarns, hooks etc Other crafty topics I hope you'll join me for all of these. I aim to post at least two or three times weekly, possibly more when there's news to share. Feel free to join in in the comments to chat, ask questions or anything else!  This is quite a short post, but there will be plenty of awesome content to come soon, so keep an eye out. In the meantime, my about page on here will have a few links, so you can find me on social media, visit my Etsy shop and visit the main website.  Happy Crocheting!  Love, Felis Silvestris